章 1759: 35
Chapter 35: This Is The TimeSummary:
In which things hit the fan, part one.
Notes:
Chapter-specific warnings: the usual [not Avengers friendly, unreliable narrator, uncomfortably-close-to-Skynet!JARVIS, miscommunication, etc.}...that's about it this round, really. Just setting the stage, here.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Peter couldn't help but blink at the ridiculously flashy car parked outside his apartment complex. What a way to cap off his day— first he forgets his phone, then a pop quiz in Chem and something about the Avengers and a breakout, now this?
As a result, he felt patently unsurprised when he walked in to see his mentor rubbing his cheek, even as Aunt May continued to yell at him. It was just that kind of day.
"—uess I deserved that."
"Oh, you think?!"
"What's going on?" Peter couldn't help but cut in, looking at them— at how Tony was cringing slightly, even as Aunt May looked ready to deck him before they both turned to him.
"Hey, Peter. How was school?" She asked, after glaring at Tony one last time.
"…fine." Peter said, and looked to Tony questioningly once again.
The man shrugged and winced again when Aunt May narrowed her eyes at him. "I forgot to ask about parental permission."
Okay, that explained even less.
"He wants you to go to Germany." She cut in, and scowled. "And didn't think to ask me."
"Yeah…my bad. Used to dealing with adults here, sorry." Tony said, and Aunt May finally relaxed, only to shake her head as he continued. "By the way, congrats for telling your aunt about your hobby, kid."
Ah, yes. That. Peter'd been grounded for over a week and had been on thin ice afterwards, but the guys in SWORD were right: it made things easier. Even if it also meant his aunt stressed over him more, but she'd also mentioned more than once that she was glad she knew.
Still, that didn't explain just what was going on.
"What does Germany have to do with anything?"
Aunt May raised her eyebrows and turned pointedly towards Tony, tapping her foot.
Tony, for his part, straightened up and leaned towards them slightly. "In case you haven't heard, there's been a breakout over at the JCTC. I'm on the case, and I wanted to know if you were interested in a field trip."
"…What?"
"It wouldn't be dangerous," Tony added hastily when he saw Aunt May tense, "he'd be listening over the comms the entire time, nowhere near the action—and that's if everything goes south and we end up needing to bring them in the hard way, I don't think that's going to happen."
"You want to bring my nephew to a—"
"He'd be either watching me talk down some fugitives, or watching a joint operation between me and security forces. He'd be nowhere near the fighting, I promise. But I thought it'd be something up his alley, seeing something like this in a controlled setting."
She eyed Tony warily, and he raised his hands but didn't back away. "I'm not the one who signed him up for this, but this is an opportunity for relatively safe field experience in something Peter's interested in. That's all I can promise in the world we live in, Ms. May."
…that answered most of his questions, but how did Peter miss all the action? He'd been out of the loop for less than one day.
"Can I go, May?" He asked, and probably did a terrible job of hiding just how badly he wanted to go. "Please? I promise I'll be careful!"
His aunt looked torn, but she looked more concerned than anything else now. She ran a hand through her hair distractedly, before looking back at them with more ferocity than Peter'd ever seen.
"You swear you'll keep him safe," she said, jabbing a finger sharply in Tony's direction.
"Swear on my life." His mentor replied promptly.
Apparently his aunt saw the truth in his eyes because she finally relaxed, and Peter couldn't help but cheer.
"Thank you, Ms. May." Tony said with all the relief Peter felt, then turned to him. "Kid, get your gear."
Peter may or may not have sprinted to his room, to get his stuff.
By the time he's finished double-checking he has everything he could possibly need, the atmosphere in the living room was a lot friendlier.
"This walnut date loaf is exceptional—" Tony remarked as he started to help himself to what was probably another slice.
Aunt May looked slightly amused at Peter's face, and leaned in slightly. "The recipe's a family secret. He's back, want to brief him on the cover story?"
"Right." Tony straightened up and looked at them both. "Anyone asks, we're having a corporate training seminar in R&D. A retreat focusing on internal cybersecurity, and since Peter Parker is one of our interns, as such he is welcome to attend company-related events, such as team-building exercises, training seminars, and the annual picnic. Which, by the way, is something you should both be getting the invites for pretty soon, but that's something for another day."
Aunt May's eyes widened slightly even as she nodded, and they all stood up and made to leave the room.
Peter hugged his aunt one last time, and she hugged him back just as tightly.
"Promise you'll be careful?"
"I promise."
"Take care. Good luck, Peter."
"Thanks, May."
And with that, they were off.
Tony handed him a comm in the car, and as they set off to Stark Industries, started to give him a recap of everything he'd missed and how the mission itself would go.
"…okay, so I know we reviewed their fighting styles earlier, but under no circumstances are you to engage, got it? Either you're going to see us de-escalating a situation and bringing them in without harm, or you're going to see a collaboration between us, the Legion, and SWORD. Get anywhere near them before that, and we're going to have words. Plus your aunt's scary, I don't want to piss her off again."
"But I can help! What if—"
"Kid, no. I know you're strong, I know you've been doing good with everything we've covered, but no. Even if I don't think the team'd escalate things, I don't want to risk dragging you into a grudge match. Sure, you can probably hold your own, but no. Not risking it."
"What exactly are you doing, then?" Peter asked curiously.
"Hopefully, just talking them down. If things go south, then Iron Man and SWORD— no puns, kid, I've got enough to handle as is— comes in. Vision's gearing up too, and War Machine should be meeting us there. I'm a bit iffy on how we're handling the PR for using the Iron Legion in a non-rescue capacity, plus most of them are currently handling either the fallout of the UN, something about…an earthquake? I don't know, but we can only afford a small squadron for this."
Peter swallowed, abruptly nervous in a way he'd been ignoring since the apartment. "So…did the Avengers really…"
Everyone he knew respected the Avengers. Tony was his favorite, for obvious reasons, but…the Avengers had saved the day, during New York. They were the heroes, so what happened for Tony to have to go in and arrest them?
"I…think it's a misunderstanding, really." His mentor replied. Then, his tone darkened for a moment, and he scowled. "Some politicians are being a pain in the a— I mean, a royal pain, because someone pretty high up the chain's trying to mess with international law. The short version is, the Winter Soldier's been accused of bombing the UN. Remember that? Well, Cap and his other buddy ended up getting arrested for trying to help him out…and then they broke out of police custody. That's where I come in."
Tony sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm trying to make sure we all go home okay, Ross apparently wants everyone to burn, and I wish I knew what Rogers was thinking— but whatever, some of this isn't going to be my problem. Point is, you're going to be seeing us bring them in. Hopefully under good circumstances, if not, you're going to be seeing a retrieval instead."
Peter nodded, but still felt a bit sick.
"You okay, kid? Still want to come with?"
"No, sure, I want to see this. Just…didn't expect to meet the team this way."
"I mean, Barton's retired, and no one's got any clue where Dr. Banner, is, but point. Here's to hoping it was just a mistake."
After getting his mentee situated—and pointedly ignoring all of the smirks everyone was giving them, because as it turns out, Security and R&D really were getting along like a house on fire— Tony found himself once again focusing on the logistics of the mission in ways he had never expected.
Such as the way he found himself arguing with INTERPOL and Germany's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US State Department over jurisdiction [because Ross apparently couldn't leave well enough alone even when facing down a lawsuit the size of Russia]. Or the other argument with the TSA, because apparently Ross' attempts to trip him up included trying to mess with clearances and Tony was grateful FRIDAY had all the paperwork in order because he did not want to call the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, nope, he'd be making enough waves as it was.
Needless to say, Tony was busy.
Especially when another shipment arrived, of more gear slated to be kept in reserve, and Tony couldn't help but blink at the list.
"Yea—okay, no, we're doing nonlethals only, live ammo's a last resort because we're not a hit squad, we're just bringing them in as peacefully as we can. R&D should have something, people, don't think I don't know what you guys stashed for Plan Z." Tony found himself saying, after yet another quest to figure out who had the bright idea of trying to sneak in hollow-point bullets into everything else on the list. "Am I going to need to have this conversation again? I feel like I will."
Geez. He knew Rogers and the rest had the potential to be dangerous, but…the way some of these guys were gunning for them honestly made him more than a little nervous, and he didn't even like the team.
JARVIS quietly ran through various scenarios using the latest data he'd aggregated, this time adjusting to the latest parameters FRIDAY had pointed out. If he were human, he would have scowled, but as it was all he could do was devote just a little more processing power to assist Legal because all signs pointed to more constraints than was ideal.
Of course, he had been aware of the Iron Legion's still-precarious position in regards to public relations, and while recent events still painted them in a positive light he still ran the risk of 'blowing his cover', as it were, when a few people had expressed curiosity in regards to the response time demonstrated during the UN attack. If anything else suspicious were to arise in the near future, all scenarios JARVIS had run through indicated a markedly reduced ability to assist Sir during a time when he would need him most, and that was. Not. Acceptable.
Damn. His original sets of backup plans would need to be scrapped, the former invited far too much scrutiny from the outside world and the latter had a high chance of becoming a liability as well— and Sir's continual emphasis on no lethal force additionally restricted some of his other ideas. Because while he personally could not care less about the people currently near the top of his Threat Analysis Index, JARVIS didn't want to disappoint his creator.
The only solace to be found was in the datapack FRIDAY had sent him, with her share of the legal situation and PR's latest battle plans. At least something was going according to plan.
…now to figure out a way to salvage the situation. He could move up the decryption of the files by 300% to best accommodate for the current situation, with any luck it would gain publicity in time to help deflect some of the attention from another project, and if Legal and PR went through with their frankly rather amusing plan then they'd be set.
Time to get to work.
Tony took a deep breath, as he oversaw the crates of gear being loaded on the plane. Everything was all set, they'd all go over the plans on the way and coordinate with the local branch of SI because apparently there were even more volunteers waiting there with even more gear [seriously, where were these people coming from? How the hell were there this many volunteers?!] which made coordination a pain and a half because everyone needed to be on the same page.
Okay, they could do that.
"J, I need the latest roster, and mind pulling up the last gear list?" Tony muttered into his headset. "I need it on the ship's screen, too, if you can. Need to have the briefing set up, knock it out of the way so I can finish yelling at the idiots who tried to revoke that one thing…or, you know what? Make a note of it for later, since I have to yell at the team when we get there."
"Of course, sir." JARVIS replied primly, and Tony couldn't help but smile even if just about every last molecule of his body only wanted a nap. "Thanks, J."
Then, his smile dropped, as he realized his mug had somehow emptied between loading and the pre-flight checks.
Damn, he needed more coffee.
Notes:
Unreliable narrator instances this round:
—Tony is under the impression he's just being a good mentor, still blissfully unaware of the Dad Vibes he's giving off. May's picked up on them, which is the only reason why she let Peter go with him. Also, the 'Plan Z' mentioned is 100% a reference to planning for a zombie apocalypse.
—gee I wonder who wanted to throw in lethal ammo in therehi, JARVIS.
———————
...so, as it turns out, when things hit the fan in my life my erratic updates go even wonkier, who knew? Add to that a boatload of school-related stuff that compounded the personal-life related stuff, and here's me trying to get back into the swing with things, feat. this chapter as a birthday present to you guys.
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